Vertatique has noted the trend toward businesses tracking the environmental impact of their supply chains. These enterprises are finding any increasing array of tools to help them do this. For example, supply chain application software provider ILOG now offers a Carbon Footprint Extension to help companies analyze and minimize carbon emissions. ILOG has partnered with Accenture to offer a webcast series about green supply chains.

Vertatique usually focuses on creating a more sustainable e-world, so it is worth occasionally noting that the e-world itself can be more sustainable than physical alternatives.  A recent study by the American Consumer Institute finds that "wide adoption and use of broadband applications can achieve a net reduction of 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas over 10 years, which, if converted into energy saved, would constitute 11% of annual U.S. oil imports." The report cites these specific opportunities, among others:

Consumer electronics suppliers will face growing scrutiny of their sustainability practices from retailers. But consumers need to support these efforts by evolving their behavior. Sierra Magazine reports:

"With the power of a good-size country, Wal-Mart has put the squeeze on its 60,000 suppliers to reduce their carbon footprint. Starting in 2008, the retailer will use data from suppliers to measure the impact of its entire supply chain. The incentive: Wal-Mart promises better placement in stores for products that have addressed sustainability issues."

But adds:

There is a clear opportunity for CIOs in every country to act boldly to assess their organizations' green computing profiles and to advocate enterprise-wide goals and policies. An article in UK's Computing reports that all to often, IT departments are followers, not leaders:

Behavioral Power Management encompasses the cultural changes within a community that result in manual power management practices that drive increased energy efficiency and reduced carbon emissions.

For example, Climate Savers Computing calculated:

Vertatique has previously reported on web conferencing as an energy saving, carbon reducing technology. Audio conferencing is older and often delivers less of a sense of "presence", but remains a valuable green technology. Lloyds and KPMG report their results . . .

One sign that it is still early days for green computing can be seen in the intersection, or lack thereof, of two UK initiatives . . .

A movie, Sweetland, claims to be "the first independently produced American film that can be called carbon-neutral." The crew describe their on-location practices, which can be applied to all media location work:

". . . using sunlight instead of generators and film lights as often as possible; carpooling to the set; buying fewer airline tickets by not flying people home on the weekends; and being efficient with the schedule by “shooting out” a location before moving . . . to the next location."

Enterprises are increasingly using outside data centers to execute large-scale, critical operations ranging from e-commerce to media delivery. Yet assessments of carbon footprints and other environmental impacts have considered these out-sourced functions to be "tertiary" and therefore often excluded from the calculations.

There is no good reason to continue doing so . . .

The BBC recently reported on the UK's effort to combat cyber warming, which it defines as "carbon dioxide emissions from the production, operation and disposal of computers"

A public-private task force know as "Green Shift" has some very specific goals: